Serving myriad functions, new building set to increase productivity and enhance customer support capabilities

January 31, 2007 — /PRNewswire/ — OYAMA, Japan — Gigaphoton Inc., a major lithography light source manufacturer for the global semiconductor industry, announced today that it has completed construction of a new building at its headquarters campus. Slated to open February 1, this new facility will house a state-of-the-art, Class 1,000 cleanroom that features expanded research and development capabilities and laser light source maintenance training for field service engineers. With training and R&D transitioned to the new facility, the existing building will now be fully dedicated to production of Gigaphoton’s advanced laser systems. This will enable Gigaphoton to nearly double its manufacturing capability as early as April.

In addition to the expanded cleanroom area for research and development activities, the training facilities have increased significantly. This expansion investment will allow Gigaphoton to further augment its already high-quality customer support capabilities to address its growing installed base. The new facility will also house Gigaphoton’s customer support administrative functions, as well as a spare parts warehouse.

Known for their extremely high reliability and lower cost of ownership, Gigaphoton’s laser light sources are widely used by most of the world’s major chipmakers. Over the past four years, Gigaphoton has dramatically increased its market share — capturing 30 percent of the global market for laser light sources (based on number of units sold) in 2006, according to company data. This is due to its popular “G41K” series krypton fluoride (KrF) laser units, which are installed in the mass-production factories of the world’s leading semiconductor manufacturers, as well as its GigaTwin series, a twin-chamber argon fluoride (ArF) laser. Gigaphoton reports that the number of GigaTwin units shipped has doubled every 6 months since the product’s introduction in 2005.

According to Dr. Yuji Watanabe, president and representative director of Gigaphoton, increased demand for its advanced light sources led the company to expand its existing facilities. “Gigaphoton’s high-quality, extremely reliable, and high-uptime products enable chipmakers’ fabs to run at benchmark levels. As a result, customers continue to turn to us as they realize the benefits afforded by our advanced lithography light source solutions, for which we provide superior service and support. All of this, together with our newly expanded production capabilities, will position us to capture a larger share of the excimer light source market over the next few years.”

About Gigaphoton
Gigaphoton Inc. was founded in 2000 as a joint venture of Komatsu Ltd., the world’s No. 2 construction machinery manufacturer, and Ushio Inc., the world’s No. 1 lithography lamp manufacturer. Since then, Gigaphoton has been developing and marketing user-friendly, highly innovative laser light sources that make a great contribution to lithography technology so as to meet the stringent requirements of the ultra-fine circuit patterns of the gigabit era, and is delivering them to major lithography tool suppliers in the global semiconductor industry. As the world’s no. 2 excimer laser light source manufacturer, Gigaphoton holds a strong position in Asian market, including Japan, while also continuing to enjoy rapid growth in the U.S. and European markets. More information about Gigaphoton can be found on the company’s website at http://www.gigaphoton.com/ .

The company name, logo, and designations GT40A, GT60A, and GT61A are trademarks of Gigaphoton, Inc. The content of this release may be revised without prior notice. Gigaphoton shall not be liable for updating or announcing a correction if the content of this release is changed for any reason in the future.

Source: Gigaphoton Inc.

CONTACT:
Hideichi Satou, +81-285-28-8410, or fax, +81-285-28-8439, or [email protected]

Yutatsu Matsui, +81-285-28-8415, or fax +81-285-28-8439, or [email protected]

Marie Labrie of MCA, +1-650-968-8900, or fax, +1-650-968-8990, or [email protected]

Web site: http://www.gigaphoton.com/